[Steve’s grave. Monroe, Louisiana. Photo is mine.]

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

~~ L. P. Hartley

On Friday, November 22, I will step away from whatever social engagement I may be involved in…and I will look up to a cloud or maybe a single star.

And I will remember.

A Golden Anniversary. Fifty years. It’s always something special, often a pleasant celebration, sometimes not. Fifty years is a long time. 18,250 days and nights, give or take a few. That’s far too much time to be given to recall a profound loss.

It was a cold night on the trail leading down into Lake Colden, in the heart of the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. The moon was bright that night. The daytime white of the snow that covered the trail had became pale blue. The moon does that, to the snow, at night, in the forest.

Steve and I had lunch five hours earlier on Summit Rock. We ate our cheese and sardines and looked across the deep ravine at Wallface. A sheer and massive cliff.

Out of nowhere, I said: “Steve, can you imagine what it must be like for a mountain climber to fall from such a place. I mean, look at that.”

Steve gazed at the cliff. “I don’t know. I think I’d rather freeze to death.”

~~

The next morning, the State Police helicopter lifted off from the clearing of the Lake Colden Ranger Station, kicking up a blizzard of snow from the upwash of the blades.

~~

Seven months later, I stood in the furnace-like heat of a southern summer and laid a flower on Steve’s grave. Decades after that, I did it again.

At the time, articles were written, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Backpacker Magazine. I came out wanting.

On many of those 18,000+ nights, I wept bitterly about my friend, Steve. I firmly believe that within the great Cycle of Nature, his energy, his molecules, his protons are going around and around and around.

A few days ago, while I was preparing to write this special rememberence of Steve, I found a photo of the high peaks:

[A part of the High Peaks. The trails and mountains here are the sites of my happiest and saddest memories of my hiking days. Photo is mine.]

Sláinte, Steve.